


What's Lost In The Translation

by tinysweetscat



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Bilingual Lance (Voltron), Cuban Lance (Voltron), Gen, Homesick Lance (Voltron), Hurt Lance (Voltron), Lance (Voltron) Angst, Lance (Voltron)-centric, Langst, NOW WITH A HAPPY ENDING, another work inspired by a Tumblr post, i'm probably projecting too, oh well, one (1) swear word so i'm not gonna tag this as teen and up, yay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-26
Updated: 2017-09-30
Packaged: 2018-10-24 05:52:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10735467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinysweetscat/pseuds/tinysweetscat
Summary: Inspired by a Tumblr post and my own feelings, a Langst fic about how speaking a language that's not truly your own is hard.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [An Answered Ask](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/286335) by lovelylangst. 



The frustration had been building up for a long time now-ever since he had joined the Garrison in fact-and it all came to a massive blowout when Pidge teased him for being dumb.

 

Lance wasn't dumb. He knew he wasn't. He knew that none of these naturally English-speaking people would understand. The Altean technology had translated English for Coran and Allura and Altean for them in English but it didn't know how to translate Spanish. And that majorly sucked. Lance would do anything to be able to hear the conversations around him in his native language.

 

Shiro, Pidge and Keith were English-native speakers and Hunk’s mother had taught him English from an early age but Lance had had to learn English himself when he got into high school. His parents struggled with it as well but they were lucky enough to have employers who either knew Spanish or had people who could translate for them.

 

Lance was very proud of his intelligence because it was something that people often compared to his parents’ smartness and he was very proud of his family. However, when they had moved to America, Lance had found out that his grades didn't matter so much in the face of his inability to understand English and he was bullied not only for his lanky structure, dark skin and shyness but for having to take ESL classes. It didn't matter that he was progressing amazingly well in learning the language-it just made him understand the insults better and caused his pillow to be wet with tears on more occasions than he could count.

 

In the short span of two years, he had caught up with how to speak American English but he still messed up sometimes as he translated everything in his head from Spanish to English when he spoke out loud. And he was still bullied for his quietness and dark skin. When Lance got chosen to be into the Garrison, his teachers announced to the whole class that they should aim to be at his level with such a vast improvement in learning that they could get into high-level academies like the Garrison. That night, Lance returned home black and blue and he never went back to his school afterwards.

 

It had been hard at the Garrison too. Tired of all the bullying, Lance had decided to become someone different: someone outgoing-someone who wasn't bullied. He still messed up with his English though. After accidentally snubbing Iverson because of a mistranslation, the man was constantly on his case and never relented for a moment. But Lance was determined to be better than before and joked around anyway. He was known for his jokes and terrible pick-up lines. It didn't matter. He could take people laughing at him for being stupid any day over them laughing at him for being bullied for his intelligence. He found people like Hunk who actually admired him for standing up to Iverson and befriended the Samoan boy over food and homesickness.

 

Hunk stood up for him in the castle when they teased Lance for being dumb because he knew better than anybody the nights Lance spent crying over just  _ not getting  _ the English language and seeing how fast Lance whizzed through Spanish books and knowing how Lance could easily help Hunk with formulas and equations in his experiments because they were more about numbers than words. However, his friend still laughed at times when Lance messed up. It was never at Lance, which Lance greatly appreciated, and was rather at the meaning of the misworded sentences Lance spoke but it still hurt a bit anyway, though Lance would never tell Hunk that.

 

But Lance could not stand being laughed at for being dumb by Pidge of all people-who knew how difficult the Garrison entry tests were. He could understand Allura and Coran mistakenly thinking he was dumb but Shiro and Keith were also laughing-and they, too, knew of the difficulty of the Garrison tests-all of which Lance had passed with flying colors. Lance wasn't a natural pilot but he wasn't unintelligent, goddamnit! And he had had enough.

 

“NONE OF YOU QUIZNAKKING UNDERSTAND! DO YOU KNOW WHEN I LEARNED THE ENGLISH? AT PIDGE”S AGE! FOURTEEN! DO YOU KNOW HOW SMART I AM IN SPANISH? NO! NEVER TRIED TO KNOW-ANY OF YOU! I AM  _ NOT  _ DUMB SO STOP! I HAVE TO TRANSLATE EVERY WORD IN HEAD BEFORE I SPEAK AND IT'S HARD! It's really hard.” Lance's voice broke on the last sentence. He was sure he'd messed up some part of his rant but he was frustrated and tired and oh-so-very-done with everything. “And yeah, I end up with stupid things said but dumb is something I am not. I would not have made into the Garrison if I was. Not be second only to Keith. Words are hard and I’m tired of being laughed at everywhere. It not easy, so why laugh? I have intelligence to understand your mean words.” Unable to stop the tears that streamed down his face, he turned heel and ran. Away from everyone who had laughed at him. He had thought that perhaps it would stop but no, he would always be laughed at. To all of them, he was just a dumb Cuban not who couldn't flirt to save his life. Well, fuck that. He wasn't, dammit! He wasn't! 

  
He cried so hard, his whole body shook. Wretched, ugly sobs tore from his throat while he screamed himself hoarse. Collapsing on his bed, he used the remote to lock the door before he curled up. He nose prickled and everything was wet but it didn't matter. He was just so stupid, stupid, stupid. He was always messing up his words. He would never fit in, no matter how much he changed himself. Utter self-loathing consumed him as he scratched at his arms. Anything, any external pain was welcome. He was falling apart and there was nothing to ground him. As he cried himself to sleep, his last thought was that he couldn't kill himself. He'd promised to himself that he wouldn't die before reaching back home and he knew that, though everyone thought he was stupid, they wouldn't want him to actually die. They make think he was stupid but he didn’t want to be a bigger disappointment than he already was. His eyes ached and nose felt itchy and his heart hurt as his lungs heaved but none of that mattered. Just like he didn’t matter. There really was no out.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't begin to apologize for how long it took me to post this so I'm not gonna go there. Instead, thank you to everyone who supported me and everyone who read, commented and 'kudos'ed this. It really means a lot to me and I wouldn't have been able to finish this without you.  
> Also, an apology if it feels a bit rushed. I only wrote this right now ^^" I do hope that I got the Spanish right. If you have any constructive criticism, please let me know.

“That was my fault, wasn't it?”

It was Pidge’s broken voice that shattered their stunned silence. They all turned to look at her and were shocked by the tears welled up in her eyes. “I kept making people feel like they were dumb which is why I didn't have any friends. But Lance ignored that and befriended me anyway and I just hurt him too.” Her voice broke and the tears started to finally roll down her face. “And I _know_ how insecure Lance is but I did it anyway. I'm a horrible frie-” “No” Hunk cut in. “It's not your fault. Not entirely anyway. It's ours too, for laughing at him. We should've realised. _I_ should've realised. Told you how used to get bullied for messing up with his English-it’s why he's so insecure. None of you could have known.” His voice was as shaky as the rest of him and they could all see that he was very upset. He and Lance were pretty close so he must have felt even worse than the rest of them at having hurt Lance so badly.

 

“We have to fix this.” Keith spoke up. They were all surprised at the intensity of his words. Keith and Lance had been growing closer and more friendly but still, the feelings behind his words betrayed a more closer relationship than the rest of them had realised. “If he used to get bullied, then he must be hurting more than we realise. When… when you go through something like that and become insecure because of it… even the slightest comment can be very upsetting because your mind goes back down that same path of self-hatred.” The softness and then the bitterness in his tone showed them all that there was more to Keith than he would ever tell them and made them feel even more ashamed-this time at how none of them knew each other well enough to know that Lance and Keith had experience with getting bullied and could have been the reason for Lance being insecure and Keith being shut-off. Each of them silently made a decision that they would not allow another incident like this to take place. From now on, they would all make a real effort to get to know each other. But that didn't solve the problem at hand.

 

“What would you suggest that we do to show Lance our support?” Allura asked. “Well, for one, understand that he's not dumb.” Hunk said sharply. “He just has a hard time translating in his head when we're having fast-paced conversations. Also, him goofing off and making jokes is to keep the atmosphere light-it’s not that he doesn’t understand the gravity of the situations.” Everyone around him, save Coran, looked away in shame. They _had_ been assuming that Lance wasn't as intelligent because of his jokes and how he needed things explained further at times. Coran merely smiled at seeing Hunk defend his friend so strongly. It reminded him of days when Alfor would do the same for him.

 

Shiro finally spoke up, as his mind finally reconciled with what had just occurred, “What if we made a translator?” Everybody turned to him in surprise. “Yes, we have to show Lance that we don’t think he’s dumb and we have to give more importance to what he’s saying but wouldn’t it also be useful to make a translator for Spanish? He could speak in his native tongue without it affecting our understanding of him and it would make it easier for him to understand us, too.” Coran grinned at the black paladin proudly, “Good job, paladin! On that note, why not make a translator for all of your Earth languages?” And, just like that, the light in Pidge’s and Hunk’s eyes reappeared while Keith relaxed his angry posture and Allura smiled delightedly. Shiro felt a wave of warmth at his team’s happiness. “I think you might be onto something, Coran.”

-

When Lance joined them for breakfast the following morning, he found his favorite space foods prepared by Hunk on the table while the boy in question and Pidge were collapsed on the table, looking half-dead. He felt emotionally vulnerable but still smiled softly at his friends. They may have hurt him but he knew that they also loved him and the problem was something that could be fixed with some talk. Apparently, they had stayed up until late yesterday trying to make up to him. The ‘swish’ of the dining room door had Lance turning around to see who had entered. It was Keith. He felt unsure of what to do, what could he say to the red paladin? But Keith just walked determinedly towards him and, before he could try to back away, he was enveloped in a hug. Oh…

 

“I’m sorry.” Keith’s muffled voice came through from where he had hidden his face in Lance’s hair. “I shouldn’t have laughed. You’re not dumb and I’m sorry for ever thinking it. Hunk told us how well you used to do in classes and how quickly you learned English-that’s really amazing. And I didn’t know about your insecurities before but now I do so if you ever wanna talk to me about that, you can always do that. And-” Keith broke off his rambling with a loud yawn and Lance smiled fondly. Keith tended to get a bit more open when tired. He pulled Keith away for a bit so he could smile at the other paladin properly, “Thank you, Keith. I really appreciate it.” Keith smiled sleepily back and wrapped his arms back around Lance. Lance fought back laughter as he gently half-tugged, half-pulled Keith towards the table so the red paladin could collapse next to his friends.

 

Once again, the ‘swish’ of the door alerted Lance of someone entering before he processed Coran speaking. “-peculiar how you humans have so many languages. Does it not cause many problems? We on Altea never did such a thing, we all spoke-” But what the Alteans spoke was not something Lance found out as that was when Coran caught sight of him. “My dear boy! Good to see you up and about! How are you feeling today? Your friends certainly exhausted themselves last night, didn’t they? Ah, it reminds me of my youth when-” “Thank you, Coran.” Allura cut in, right as Lance realised that Shiro and Allura had followed Coran in. “I hope you are well-rested.” Lance smiled awkwardly at the Altean princess, “Uh, yeah. I do feel a bit better.”

 

Shiro came forward and rested a hand on Lance’s shoulder. “Well, that’s good news. As an apology from all of us for yesterday, we’ve got a surprise for you. Why don’t you eat up? Maybe then those three,” Shiro gestured at the sleeping paladins flopped on the table, “will be awake enough to explain what we made.” Lance felt immeasurably curious at what his friends had prepared for him-not that they needed to. But they wanted a way to show their remorse and Lance was willing to accept the peace-offering. Things wouldn’t magically be fixed by a gift but it would soothe the wounds and heal the rift so that everything could work out later.

 

By the time Lance had finished eating a very large breakfast, courtesy of Hunk, his best friend, along with Pidge and Keith, had woken up. One by one, everyone apologized and Lance accepted their apologies, wondering what they had prepared for him. The anticipation came to a standstill when Pidge produced some sort of earplugs out of nowhere. “It’s still a bit fiddly coz none of us know Spanish too well and I need to make it easier to wear and translate one’s actual voice as well and it needs to be battle-worthy but here.” Lance carefully took the ear plugs and put them on. “Is this what I think it is…?” Pidge just grinned at him as Hunk took out a hand computer and fiddled with it. “Say something in Spanish.” Keith spoke up from behind Lance, making him almost startle in surprise. “Uh... _me encanta el espacio?_ ” Almost immediately, another voice spoke up from the computer Hunk held. “I love space.”

 

Oh.

 

Lance laughed hysterically. They had made him a translator! He could speak in Spanish and they would understand it. Keith moved in closer and ruffled his hair. “That’s not all it can do.” Pidge grinned at him and pressed a button on the translating device before speaking, “Lance, we’re sorry for yesterday. You’re not dumb. Also, we love you.” An automated voice spoke through the ear plugs, “ _Lance, lo sentimos por lo de ayer. No eres tonto y te amamos._ ” The tone was completely off but the words...oh, how he had missed hearing his own language! He didn’t even realise he had been crying until Shiro offered him a space tissue.

 

Yeah, things weren’t perfect when they were fighting an intergalactic war older than Earth itself, and they would sometimes hurt each other accidentally. But they were a family now and family didn’t give up on each other. Lance’s tears were happy now because he was so, so grateful for his space family. He wouldn’t give it up for anything. There are some things that are cannot be lost in the translation and the universal feeling of love is one of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope that you all find people who you can love and who love you unconditionally.

**Author's Note:**

> Come talk to me on Tumblr main @tinysweetscat or my writing blog @kittycute40writes!  
> Also, I will love you if you comment so don't feel shy! ♡


End file.
